Dive into Darkstalkers with The Nostalgic Gamer’s Fighting Game Primer series

Step into the world of the Night Warriors with these guides from The Nostalgic Gamer!

After concluding his “Meet The Darkstalkers” series last April with an episode covering Lilith Aensland, The Nostalgic Gamer continues his Darkstalkers Forever project with a three-part “Darkstalkers Fighting Game Primer” mini-series. It serves to introduce newcomers to both the wold of Darkstalkers (as well as the fighting game genre as a whole) though the lenses of Night Warriors and Vampire Savior, the two most-commonly played installments of the franchise, which are also part of Capcom’s 2013 Darkstalkers Resurrection release.

Though the series begins by explaining the very basic concepts of 2D fighting games (which will no doubt be familiar territory to the majority of our readers), TNG goes on to outline mechanics that are specific to Darkstalkers such as Pursuit Attacks, Holds, and the Dark Force system in Vampire Savior, as well as the core differences between the two games.

Finally, the third part of the Primer discusses ways for new players to get into the genre and stay for the long haul, as well as just exactly what drives many of us to log hours and hours of study and playtime into our video game genre of choice — especially for a 21-year old game like Savior.

With this weekend’s AnimEVO having a 56 entrant side tournament, this series is definitely a recommended watch if you’re new to the game, but invested in spectating the event. There is also a series of companion articles, videos, and social media pages, if you’re interested in further increasing your fighting game knowledge or looking to get involved with the competitive Darkstalkers community, listed in the video descriptions. You can see the full series below.